In Black and White: Veera's Dream
by Cypher DS
Summary: Do pokemon dream of electric mareep? After their friend's Lilligant is rendered comatose by a mysterious sickness, Cheren and Bianca debate whether pokemon really can dream, and discover the difficulty of interpreting another's suffering through your own.


**Author's Note: My interpretations of Cheren, Bianca and White are based on the personalities established by the very talented Wasserbienchen. I highly recommend reading her Pokemon fan-comic _In Black and White_, available on DeviantArt and the Nuzlocke Forums.**

**Otherwise, ****I do not own any of the characters or original story elements associated with the Pokemon series. All rights go to their respective owners.**  


* * *

In Black and White: Veera's Dream

by Cypher DS

My phone rings six times before Cheren has the decency to answer. That's five rings too long - the smoke is spreading, Bianca's cough is aggravating and Champ's shrieking is growing unbearable. _By the Thousand Arms of Arceus, pick up the phone, Cheren!_

_Click._ "This better be good."

"Cheren? Apartment 24. Get over here now." Bianca's forced her way through the balcony's screen door but I still can't find Champ's pokeball.

"Ugh, White, it's three in the morning, can't it -"

"It can't! I need your help right now!" My eyes are watering, but whether from the fumes or my panic, I can't tell. "Cheren, it's Veera - she's dying."

* * *

The moment Cheren knocks I yank him inside and re-adjust the towels wedged under the door frame. I've already shut off the room's smoke detector but I can't risk alarming any of the other guests. It's been twenty-four hours since the Nimbasa North Pokemon Center was targeted by a terrorist bombing and I don't want anyone mistaking this mess for a repeat.

"Stun spores?" As soon as he recognizes the yellow fumes Cheren drops to his knees and pulls his shirt collar over his nose. "White, what's going on?"

"I don't know. One minute I'm asleep, the next thing I know Champ's pouncing on my bed and screaming and Veera's suh-spuh- spray -" _Oh Arceus_, the tremors through my hands were bad enough but now my jaw is locking up!

Cheren notices and scrambles through his med kit for an anti-toxin. "I warned you about keeping your team out of their pokeballs." He injects himself first, then jabs my arm with a second syringe - a little harder than necessary, I think. My muscles relax immediately.

"Where's Bianca?" he snarls. I've seen Cheren angry before, usually because I've teased him into a fuss, but tonight he's been pushed into an all-out rage. "If you hurt her, I swear -"

But he spots her, bent over and coughing on the balcony and he leaves to administer her antidote. I've just enough time to grab my pokeballs and recall my hysterical servine. _One down_. Our next-door neighbours are already pounding on the walls for us to "keep it down in there"; we have to move fast before they decide to call the manager. We have to save Veera.

Veera is my Lilligant - caught as a Petilil and recently evolved under the warm Nimbasa sun. She's a Flowering Pokemon according to the _Encyclopaedia Unova_ - a beautiful, female-only species draped in petals like a ballroom gown and crowned with a crimson flower tiara. They're meant to be elegant, graceful; the ideal sought by show breeders and contest coordinators. I've never scanned Veera with my pokedex but if I did, I wonder if the device would even recognize the rotten weed I've raised.

Veera is a monster crafted from dead body parts and sewn together with scar tissue. The flower crown gracing her head is a dark and overripe red; the petals droop over her face as though she's ashamed to be seen. Her princessly gown of leaves, withered and sickly yellow, might as well be a paper bag. I'm only just noticing now but the tips of her newly sprouted arms are beginning to rot with brown. It makes me want to scream at her - _By Arceus, don't you realize you've got hands?_ For the first time in her life she has limbs with which to lift, to touch, to embrace and instead of seizing her potential she's letting them shrivel and die.

Then there are the scars: parallel streaks of black that mark the touch of a darumaka's poker-hot claws across her chest and through her face. The gouges have been healed for weeks now, but tonight Veera makes them appear fresh and raw the way she thrashes on the carpet, squirming under the weight of an invisible opponent; eyes clenched and mouth wide in a horrified scream.

I've evolved a Lilligant. I should feel joy at this rarity I've blossomed - the pride of a creator. But as Veera shrieks and fills the air with foul smoke and smell, all that pulses though my head is a single thought:

_I made this. I made this._

Cheren is back, muttering that he's a "trainer, not a doctor" but for the moment he reacts with a healer's instinct. He throws my bed sheets over the writhing pokemon to contain the worst of her spores, and orders me to pick up the plant and follow him into the bathroom. He's brought his first-aid kit and now he's plugging the bathroom sink and pouring whole vials of medicine into the basin; snatching my weed child once his brew is complete.

Veera's underside is a mass of thin roots wriggling like maggots. Cheren dunks her tendrils into the medicinal bath; orders us girls to help him hold her down. Bianca is still out on the balcony, coughing, and I'm momentarily torn between comforting my sobbing friend and restraining the life I've now failed twice to protect.

"White, help me out here - she's your pokemon!"

Cheren's voice shocks me over. Veera puts up a powerful struggle, and her withering leaves are still sharp enough to slice my arms with paper cuts but eventually the plant pokemon's roots begin to drink up the liquid sedatives and the thrashing subsides. She goes limp and falls into Cheren's arms.

I wonder if her fall is deliberate. I wonder whether in her last moments of consciousness she had just enough sense to keep away from me.

* * *

I suggest we put Veera in my bed but Cheren is in one of his holier-than-thou moods and declares we'd better follow his instructions to the tee. Veera is to be kept upright - she can't have any of her leaves smothered or obstructed. We need to find a wide basin, fill it up with sugar water and let her root system have a long drink. And she needs direct light, lots of it. She's expended a lot of energy and we have to keep her photosynthesizing until morning. Yes, the desk lamp will do - here, set her up in the corner and one of you hold her so she doesn't tumble over.

Bianca offers to take the first shift, putting a pillow between her back and the wall while she rests her hands on Veera's shoulders. I can list a dozen other 'friends' who by now would have packed their bags, called me a few choice names and left to find a new roommate, but Bianca is the sort of person who sticks by your side, no matter the trial. I'd hesitate to say we're "like sisters" but we trust each other. Kyurem, I'm the only person she's confessed to about her sexuality (well, besides her parents, but that's another ordeal). I'm grateful to have her trust and her help.

While Bianca hums a lullaby for Veera, Cheren bandages my arms. Cheren's the other friend I can rely on in a pinch, but more so in an 'older brother' fashion. He won't 'hug it out' when you're feeling down, but he's honest to a fault, and he'll give you his opinion whether you want it or not. I think he's spared me a thousand embarrassing humiliations by helping me through homework or by explaining the fundamentals of pokemon training.

Right now, I'm about to receive another of his honest opinions. "You're bloody lucky you haven't been noticed and kicked out of this center. I've already thought up ten different public health violations and I'll have another twenty listed by morning. White, what were you thinking, letting your pokemon out at night?"

_I thought that, if I gave Veera some time to reconnect with Champ, I might get her to smile again. _But Cheren would just tell me what a fool I am for 'projecting human traits onto pokemon' and I don't want to deal with his harsh logic right now. So I lie. I've gotten quite good at it, recently.

"I, I thought she needed some time outside to, I mean, to get used to her new body. You know, arms and stuff."

It's a little weak, but Cheren concedes my point, muttering something about his Pignite being caught "off-guard" by her new ability to walk upright. "But by the Light of Arceus, you need to keep her supervised, White. It's good that you're starting to consider your team's abilities but don't assume they can go it alone."

"Got it."

"First thing tomorrow morning you are taking your Lilligant to a veterinarian. For all we know she's crawling with parasites."

I nod, but, "You know, I had my servine out as well and he didn't seem to be acting odd." Just a little panicked at his girlfriend's sudden seizure but not displaying any contagious symptoms himself. "I don't think she's sick. If anything, she was just reacting to a bad dream."

"A bad dream?" The way Cheren looks at me, I'm suddenly no better than those fundamentalist Plasmas who believe the Earth is four thousand years old and resting on the back of a giant torterra. "White, pokemon don't have dreams. Your Lilligant is sick and you've got to determine the physiological cause."

I have a retort ready to go but Bianca interrupts. "Hey guys, come here, quick!"

We hurry over, fast as yanma. "What now, is she waking up?"

"No, no, it's nothing bad. I was singing to Veera and all of a sudden her face gave this cute little twitchy-twitch and then she started smiling. It was there just a second ago, I'm sure."

I'm crowding out Bianca, so desperate to see joy on my little pokemon's face again but Veera has returned to a sullen glare - her new natural. I slink away, curling my body around a pillow. Bianca does her best to reassure me. "I really did see it, White. She looked happy." Then she adds, "She must have been having a really good dream."

"Kyurem, am I in an echo chamber here?" Cheren doesn't mean to snap but it is three thirty in the morning and he hasn't the patience to deal with a second delusional fool. "Pokemon don't have dreams!"

Bianca's eyes go wide as a little child who's been told there is no Easter Bunneary. "Excuse me?"

"Pokemon. Don't. Have. Dreams. What on Regigigas' green earth is so hard to grasp about that?"

"Let's see, where do I start?" Bianca cups her chin and scrunches up her forehead in her best 'Hard-Thinking Cheren' impersonation. "What about your growlithe, Colin? The other day I saw him taking a nap and his back leg was twitching up a storm. He was growling and tossing his head around and he even snapped out a growl or two, but he was sound asleep. What caused that, hmm? I'll tell you what - he was imagining himself chasing down a patrat, and the dream was so good his body started moving along with it. Pokemon do dream!"

Bianca and I high-five. "Let's see you argue that, Professor."

Cheren smirks, relishing the opportunity to knock us country bumpkins down a notch. "Let's be specific about our definitions. What you're describing, Bianca, is the transmission of electrical impulses through the body's neural network, and I'm not denying pokemon that experience. Colin was asleep and his brain sent out random impulses to toss and turn and even to bark. Heck, cut open a dead politoed, hook it up to an electrical circuit and its legs will twitch all the same.

"But to dream - that's something different. To dream is to hope. To dream is to analyze your current life situation and to surmise that there could be improvement. That you can move beyond the story you are currently living. Analyzing meta-narrative is an exclusively human capability. Pokemon don't have the intellect to dream."

"But Professor Fennel says -"

"Professor Fennel is a half-baked twit who believes in a magical lollipop land called the Island of Dreams! Look, pokemon exist in the 'now'. They eat, they sleep, they breed; they don't look beyond their next bodily impulse. Only humans are free to extend ourselves from the 'now' and into the 'what may'."

"What's your 'what may', Cheren?" My question catches Mr. Genius off guard. He jerks back, stutters. I egg him on. "C'mon, Cherry," I say, reviving his grade school nickname. "Tell us what you dream about."

"Yeah, Cherrrry," Bianca chimes. She mock gasps. "Or maybe it's a 'who' you're dreaming of." We hit the girly _ooooh_ in perfect unison.

Cheren crosses his arms and shuts himself off from the world. "I don't dream. Or if I do, I don't remember them," but the blush on his cheeks says otherwise.

"Well I still think pokemon dream," Bianca asserts, "even if it's just simple dreams. Cheren, you say pokemon just eat and sleep and think of 'now' - well can't they dream of a better 'now'? Like, _gee, I wish I had more food_, or, _gosh, I wish my bed was softer_?"

"Then enlighten us," Cheren sneers, throwing his hand towards the sedated Veera. "What simple dreams does White's Lilligant dare to dream?"

"Dreams of family!"

Cheren arches an eyebrow. Bianca continues. "White, you caught Veera in Pinwheel Forest, right? Well, maybe she dreams about the two of you visiting her old home one day. Maybe she dreams that you'll run into her old family. Or are pokemon not allowed to have families, Professor Know-It-All?"

"Many wild species do live in herds for mutual -"

"Thank you. Anyway, maybe Veera dreams about meeting all of her little sisters; the ones she used to play and laugh with all day long. And maybe, when they first see each other, her family keeps away. It's been such a long time; she's evolved, grown - she's become someone so different from the little Petilil her family knew. They don't understand her and maybe that frightens them.

"But maybe, in her dream, Veera spies one brave little Petilil who creeps forward - carefully at first, but gaining courage as she gets near. The little sprout gives the big stranger a careful sniff, and she recognizes something familiar. They start chirping to each other, and maybe Veera shows off the little dance they used to do when they were just tiny buds. And then that one little Petilil realizes that, no matter how different Veera seems on the outside, that she's still the same sweet girl her family knew and loved.

"And then that one brave pokemon chirps to her sisters, 'Hey everyone, it's Veera! She's back!' and there's a rush of excitement from all the little flowers as they crowd around Veera and press their bodies close together in one great big family hug. And those sisters who used to be so afraid, they let her know that, even though she has a new life with her trainer, even though she has a whole new world to explore, that she is always, forever and ever, welcome back home."

Bianca opens her eyes, a single tear running down her smiling cheek. "That's what I think she dreams about."

Cheren's laugh rips through the moment like a fart. "That's the biggest bunch of sentimental baloney I've ever heard!" I whack him with my pillow. Hard. "Oh come on, White, don't tell me you support this schmaltzy attempt at anthropomorphization?"

"You can go stick your anthropo-whatsits where the sun don't shine, Mister! Bianca, I thought that was a wonderful story."

But Bianca has curled up like a whirlipede, sulking and glaring venom at the logic-driven male in the room. Using pokemon to intentionally attack people carries a mandatory prison sentence, but I think Bianca is willing to risk the jailhouse blues if it means putting Doctor Logic in his place. I haven't seen her so angry and embarrassed since Meya's kidnapp- I mean, Meya's theft.

"Well what do I know," she mutters, wobbling on the edge of tears. "Nothing, I guess. I'm just a big dumb, blonde dy-"

"It was a well-crafted story." We both stare at Cheren, whose eyes are averted to fiddling with his med kit. "And it may have been ... insensitive of me to criticize it so. Bianca, I'm not yet convinced as to the veracity of pokemon dreams, but if they did dream, yours would be a very lovely one to have."

I have to credit Cheren this much - as lousy with human relationships as he is, a couple months on the road with two girls have left him well-coached in the art of defusing ticking time bombs.

Bianca still throws a pillow at him, but he could have gotten worse. "You're a jerk."

"Possibly," he concedes and makes a well-timed deflection. "So White, you're Veera's trainer. How do you rate the accuracy of that dream?"

"Me? Well, I mean, it's not what _I_ think she dreams of -"

"Oh, oh - you go next, White." Bianca's perked up like a Sunflora on a sunny day. "I wanna hear what you think Veera's dreams are!"

_Umm, redirecting a water main to flood out the wild pokemon burrows on Route 4?_ "I dunno," I hem, stalling for time. "You're sure, though? It's not really a good dream - not at first," I add, seeing Bianca's pout. I exhale and start.

"I think Veera dreams about the wild darumaka that attacked her. It lasted just a few seconds, but I think she dreams about all the ways those few seconds could have gone differently. If she hadn't been so naive, so trusting; so assuming that others were good and could be relied upon.

"I think she dreams about all the 'what ifs' that could have occurred. _What if I'd been more aware of my surroundings? What if I'd been more prepared for the reality of battle?_ I think she replays those few seconds over and over and it haunts her dreams how she got stuck with the worst possible outcome.

"I think Veera dreams about scars. Black marks forced upon her body, each one a symbol of how she screwed up. I think she dreams about being covered in black until she drowns in her mistakes. And it's not like she can ask for a helping hand to pull her out of the darkness. She's afraid to be seen. She's afraid that if her friends ever saw her scars they could never look at her again.

"But there's hope, because Veera knows that time heals all wounds, and she dreams of the months and the years to come. Her scars won't disappear, not fully, but as she grows she'll bloom such incredibly beautiful flowers that the world will overlook those silly little scratches, and she'll prove that she's so much more than a dumb patchwork of cuts and bruises.

"And that beautiful flower will look upon the smiles of all her pokemon friends. Nuria and Naub will be there, but so will Pichie and Suchi and Boffet and Divec and they'll all clap their paws or chirp their beaks for her success. And Champ will be a huge Serperior, and he'll cuddle up to her in a tender squeeze and let her know he's so proud of what she's become. Of what their children will become."

I open my eyes. Cheren keeps his face a guarded neutral but Bianca is leaning forward, hungry for more. I'm afraid of what might blurt out if I continue, so I punctuate my story with a quick "The End."

"Interesting," Cheren concedes and returns to fiddling with his medical supplies. Bianca takes a moment longer to digest the dream.

"That was a little sad," she admits. "But I like the part about her and Champ falling in love and having lots of babies. You'd let me have one of the little Snivies, right?"

Cheren is muttering something like 'already castrated' but my elbow in his gut shuts him up before he can spoil the mood. "Absolutely," I smile. "You'd get pick of the litter!"

The news makes Bianca squeal. "Okay, now it's your turn, Cheren! You tell us what Veera's dreaming about. Or 'thinking' about. Pokemon can think - you've got to admit that much."

"This is highly unscientific," he grumbles, but he doesn't back down from the challenge. He puts his hand to his chin and rolls his eyes up at the ceiling, focusing his mind to a laser-tight precision. Bianca starts clicking her tongue to simulate a clock and I shush her quiet. I want to hear what Cheren's got.

"Sunlight."

"Sunlight?"

Well, that's Cheren for you. Ask him what a cloud looks like and he'll say 'water vapour'. Bianca swings her pillow at him. "Boo, that's no fun!"

"I'm not finished." He waits for us to settle, clears his throat and begins his lecture.

"White's Lilligant thinks of sunlight. What else would it think of? As a chlorophyll-based lifeform, the sun is intrinsic to her survival. As long as her leaves soak up radiation like an array of solar-panels, she can produce a continual supply of glucose. As long as the sun shines, she'll never know hunger or want.

"Now, if we indulge our little pokemon with the capacity for curiosity, then we can say that Veera is fascinated by the sun. She looks up into the sky and she wonders: what is it, this gentle, yellow glow? She longs to understand its contradictions - how it can be so powerful, and yet so nurturing; so frighteningly bold and yet so sensitive as to hide itself every night. And if she truly can dream, then she dreams of a world under an eternal sun. She thinks, 'I could be so much stronger than I am - I could feel so very complete - if I could have that sunlight forever by my side.'

"And she thinks, 'what fulfillment the sun could enjoy too; what happiness it might experience in the constant adoration of its little worshipper.'

"But of course, Veera has a sense of self-preservation. She's seen fire; she extrapolates that fire and sun share the same element, and she appreciates that, if she ever dared to reach out and touch the sun, she would shrivel up and die.

"So if she dreams, I can only conclude that she dreams of the sun. In her dream she waits for the sun to descend; for that moment of twilight when the fiery orb will grace the lowly earth with its heavenly presence. She waits for that one perfect moment she might meet the sun at the horizon, and when the sun might assure her it is safe to come close and to know its eternal embrace."

When I open my eyes I see that Cheren has added pantomime to his narration - he's looking to the desk lamp behind Bianca, hand outstretched to the glow, face trembling with the exertion of Arceus Himself, labouring to craft the heavens and the earth.

Bianca has dropped her jaw, pillow cuddled tight to her body, enraptured. "Wow, Cheren, that's so ... romantic." I can't help but think that, were he a girl, Bianca would be all over 'Cherena' right now. Even my heart's fluttering and I've got to pinch my side and remind myself that it's Cheren who's delivered this passionate soliloquy - dorky, battle-obsessed Cheren with all the emotional depth of a magnemite!

Cheren wakes from his performance, realizes the pose he's struck and folds up like a cherubi in the rain. "It's pathetic," he blurts over the blush in his cheeks. "Pokemon don't dream. Only humans do."


End file.
